Hold your horses

FORD deal­ers across Aus­tralia are re­port­ing that the wait­ing list for the new Mus­tang has stretched out to next June.

Last month Ford re­ported that more than 2000 Aus­tralians so far have paid de­posits for the car — in­clud­ing one cus­tomer who or­dered six — but Cars­guide has been told some deal­ers are hold­ing more than 50 or­ders.

“Or­der a car to­day and you’re look­ing at June de­liv­ery next year,” said one lead­ing Ford dealer.

Sev­eral deal­ers in other states re­ported the same forecast for fresh or­ders.

The news comes as Ford has be­gun a Mus­tang road­show across the coun­try, ahead of its show­room ar­rival in De­cem­ber.

In the com­ing weeks Ford is tak­ing the Mus­tang to se­lect deal­ers who are host­ing cus­tomer preview nights; only those who or­dered a car have been in­vited. Ford re­ports that al­most half of the Mus­tangs sold so far are of the V8 coupe, and the most pop­u­lar colour is red, ahead of black and grey.

Ford is yet to re­veal how many cus­tomers have placed or­ders for the four-cylin­der ver­sion but deal­ers are re­port­ing a sur­pris­ing up­take.

“At first the en­thu­si­asts come out and most of them want the V8, but we are see­ing peo­ple who want the look and are happy with the four-cylin­der ver­sion,” said another lead­ing Ford dealer.

“We think we will sell more four-cylin­der Mus­tangs once peo­ple can take it for a test drive.”

One in four Mus­tang cus­tomers at some deal­ers have never owned a Ford be­fore, and some are trad­ing BMW and Mercedes-Benz coupes.

“That has re­ally sur­prised us,” one dealer said.

One cus­tomer or­dered a new Mus­tang over the phone min­utes af­ter re­turn­ing from test­ing one in the US.

Ford says a hand­ful of Mus­tang en­thu­si­asts have or­dered more than one car, at least one pri­vate buyer has or­dered six, and a sportscar rental com­pany has or­dered 20, the big­gest sin­gle or­der so far.

“The buyer re­sponse for the 2015 Ford Mus­tang has been ex­tra­or­di­nary,” says David Black­wood, Dealer Prin­ci­pal of the Bay­ford Group in Vic­to­ria.

“As soon as Ford an­nounced Mus­tang was com­ing to Aus­tralia (in De­cem­ber 2013) our phones started ring­ing. A few cus­tomers even made de­posits be­fore pric­ing and spec­i­fi­ca­tions were con­firmed. I’ve never seen any­thing quite like it.”

The Mus­tang ranges in price from $44,990 for a four-cylin­der man­ual coupe, to $63,990 for a V8 au­to­matic con­vert­ible.

While sports sus­pen­sion is an op­tion in the US, all Aus­tralian cars will come with the per­for­mance pack as stan­dard. But the “burnout but­ton” de­signed to warm the rear tyres in off-street drag rac­ing has been deleted from Aus­tralian Mus­tangs amid Ford con­cerns of a back­lash from safety groups.